Economic confidence on the wane again

Last month I put up a post that argued that the Labour recovery in recent months co-incided with a rather counter-intuitive increase in the proportion of people who thought the economy would be doing better in 6 months time, something that had emerged since the bank bailout in the Autumn. I speculated that, if bad economic news meant economic optimism fell again in 2009 it might also go hand in hand with Labour's poll ratings.

Well, back then I used the Nationwide's consumer confidence tracker, carried out by TNS. They've just released their latest data, and it shows people's confidence about the economy in 6 months time falling again. If there is any correlation with how the government's support is holding up (and it is, I hasten to add, only a hypothesis) then it doesn't bode well for Labour support in the first voting intention polls of the year.